Course Curriculum

Aims of the Training:

• to provide a deep appreciation of the Breath of Life and the “primary respiratory system”
• to provide an in-depth understanding of the healing principles of the system with the ability to appropriately apply this understanding in a therapeutic context
• to cultivate clearly defined palpation and treatment skills that support the health of the patient and relate with care and competency to disease processes
• to develop trust in the instinctual, perceptual and spiritual capabilities of the student
• to graduate skilled, safe and therapeutically effective Craniosacral Therapy practitioners.

Seminar One – Five Days

Preparing the Ground: presence and palpatory awareness

• Introductions
• History and development of the craniosacral concept
• The biodynamic paradigm
• Practitioner fulcrums
• The ritual of contact – creating safety
• Presence, embodiment and mindfulness
• Practitioner neutral
• Palpation and perception
• Being to being relational field
• Touch and the relational field
• The five core aspects of the primary respiratory mechanism
• Primary respiratory system; the Breath of Life and three tides
• Orienting to the ‘biosphere’ of the client
• Perception and palpation of the three tides: the cranial rhythmic impulse, mid-tide and long tide
• Shifting perceptual fields
• Longitudinal fluctuation and cerebrospinal fluid
• Stillpoints in the fluid tide
• Trauma part 1: resources and health
• Palpation of the fluid tide
• Synchronising with the long tide

Seminar Two – Four Days

Life and Motion: the fluid body and potency

• Palpation skills: listening hands, diagnostic touch, therapeutic touch
• Embryology part 1: from conception to the development of the notochord
• The midlines part 1:
  • as a fluid core
  • cerebrospinal fluid
  • fluid within the fluid: potency and liquid light
  • primal midline and the notochord
• Orienting to wholeness and the ‘holistic shift’; gateway to the inherent treatment plan
• The ‘fluid body’ – longitudinal and lateral fluctuations
• Tidal motion and disordered fluid motion:
  • as the river flows: stasis, stagnation, rapids, whirlpools and lateral fluctuations
  • fluid fulcra; identification and holding in a wide perceptual field
• Interacting with fluids: augmentation skills
• Perceiving the role of stillness in the healing process
• Trauma part 2:
  • safety, danger and life-threat
  • resources and overwhelm
  • shuttling
• Supporting safety during practice sessions
• Reciprocal tension membranes and reciprocal tension motion
• Orienting to the biosphere and widening to the long tide, transmutation and dynamic interchange

Seminar Three – Four Days

Entering the Heart of Healing: facilitating states of balance

• Orienting to tissues, fluid and potency
• Tissue motility – fluidity and tensegrity
• Palpation of tissue motility: cranial motility, flower petals
• Distortion patterns and tissue memory
• Understanding and perceiving biodynamic and conditional forces
• Natural fulcra and inertial fulcra
• Perceiving conditioned patterns of experience
• The ‘holistic shift’ and following the inherent treatment plan
• The heart of the healing process: states of balance
• Direction of priority
• The role of settling and stillness in the therapeutic process
• Accessing states of balance within the field of tissues, fluid and potency
• Trauma part 3: Dissociation and embodiment
  • orienting to body sensation
  • WOSI (weight, outline, skin and inside)
• Reciprocal tension membrane (RTM) – automatic shifting
• RTMs and patterns of experience, accessing states of balance
• Stillpoints revisited – CV4 via tissue motility at occiput

Seminar Four – Four Days

Cranial Motility and Health: organising forces and augmentation skills

• Cranial bowl and the unity of structure and function
• Embryology part 2: cranial mesenchyme
  • continuity of bone and membrane
  • the cranium as a fluid filled membrane with islands of bone
• Motility of individual bones and disengagement of cranial sutures: temporal, parietal and frontal bones
• Augmentation skills
• The principle of “doing not-doing”
• Dr. Becker’s 3-step healing process: (1) tissues, fluids and potency seek a state of balance; (2) perceiving expressions of health within states of balance; (3) perceiving tissue and fluid re-organisation
• Orientation to the Teaching Clinic
• Working with the continuity of cranial bones and membranes
• Focusing: as a regulation skill for practitioners
• Deepening into stillpoints: CV4 from sacrum

Seminar Five – Five Days

The Whole in the Part: birth process, the spheno-basilar junction and beyond

• Birth process from the baby’s perspective
• Birth energy and birth ignition
• Birth as a formative transition: physical and psychological imprints
• The birth journey and birth presentation
• Birth stages
• Cranial molding and patterns of the spheno-basilar junction (SBJ)
• The significance of the SBJ and whole body SBJ connections
• Physiological patterns of the SBJ
• Non-physiological patterns of the SBJ
• Case history taking
• Introduction to intraosseous strains – the occiput
• Trauma part 4: Integrating verbal skills
  • freeze, dissociation and activation
  • ‘Polyvagal Theory’ and social engagement
  • slowing down, staying with body sensations, resources, being present, finding a witness, creating safety, allowing discharge
• Lumbo-sacral junction and sacroiliac joints

Seminar Six – Five Days

Support and Balance: spinal dynamics and the primal midline

• The suspensory nature of the three bodies: physical body, fluid body and tidal body
• The spine and connective tissue continuity
• The dural tube
• Embryology part 3: formation of the notochord and somites
• The spine:
  • embryology of the spine: working with embryological triads
  • vertebral dynamics and states of balance
  • cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions
• Neurological facilitation part 1: facilitated segments and somatic loops
• Embryological fluid fields of the spine
• The midlines part 2: the primal midline, layers of function
• Deepening into the stillness of the midline
• The suspensory nature of the midline in health
• The occiput, atlas and axis – where the midline bends
• The upper embryological triad of the sphenoid, occiput and atlas
• Listening and responding to the inherent treatment plan – the automatic shifting of potency
• Stillpoints: EV4

Seminar Seven – Four Days

Return to Wholeness: dynamics of fascia and the inherent treatment plan

• Connective tissues and connective tissue dynamics
• Whole body connective tissue matrix
• New science of fascia
• Superficial fascia and deep fascia
• Fascia as a communication pathway and sensory organ
• Bio-tensegrity: whole body patterns
• The liquid crystalline matrix
• Transverse structures; the four diaphragms
• Thoracolumbar fascia and its significance
• Psoas fascia and its interconnections
• Entrapped force vectors
• Principles and practice working with limbs and peripheral joints
• The original matrix – a blueprint of health

Seminar Eight – Four Days

The Seat of the Soul: fluid, potency and the central nervous system

• Jugular foramen and cranial outflow – clearing the outlets to cranial fluid drainage
• Venous sinus drainage
• Embryology part 4: formation of the central nervous system; the story of the ectoderm
• Motility of the central nervous system
• The mind and the brain
• Neurological facilitation and the stress response
• Orienting to the cerebral cortex, brainstem and cerebellar hemispheres
• The ventricles:
  • ‘tour of the minnow’
  • liquid light
  • 3rd ventricle dynamics
  • the pituitary and pineal glands
  • neuro-endocrine considerations
• Conception ignition: ignition of the ground of being

Seminar Nine – Four Days

Expression and Being: the face and the heart

• Communication and co-operation – the social being
• The bony viscero-cranium – maxillae as a hub, suspended from the frontal
• Motility and mobility of the facial bones
• Fronto-nasal, lacrimal and ethmoid relationships
• The face and hard palate: vomer, palatines and maxillae
• Patterns of the maxillae
• Embryology part 5: derivatives of the pharyngeal arches; bones, muscles, cranial nerves
• Embryological fluid fields of the head, face and throat
• Trauma part 5: the ‘Polyvagal Theory’ and Social Engagement System
• Babies, social engagement and self regulation
• Practical feedbacks
• Introduction to body viscera
• Embryology part 6: body viscera
• The heart and lungs

Seminar Ten – Four Days

As Above So Below: the jaw and pelvis

• The temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ) and its interconnections
  • the hyoid bone
  • sternocleidomastoid and lateral pterygoid muscles
  • TMJ ligaments – specific dynamics and inertial patterns
  • dental work issues
• Cranio-pelvic resonance
• The eyes, boney orbit and zygomae
• Below the diaphragm
• Embryology part 7: the story of the endoderm
• Motility of the abdominal field
• The liver, stomach and gut tube
• The sixth sense – interoception and the “second” brain
• Small intestines and large intestines
• Practical feedbacks
• Inherent treatment plan: the “mysterious gateway” – deepening into states of balance and the long tide

Seminar Eleven – Five Days

Out Into the World: pregnancy, birth and completion

• Closing the circle: biodynamics in practice
• Introduction to pre-natal dynamics
• Tuning in to the “inner embryo” and perfect health
• Birth imprints in adults; birth as a formative experience
  • “As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines”
  • life statements
• Principles of working with babies and families
• Birth ignition – the umbilicus, heart and lungs
• The umbilicus as an organising centre and relational midline – umbilical shock
• Working with ‘another pair of hands’
• Review of organisational skills and healing principles
• Birthing the practitioner; stepping out into practice
• Practice management
• Inherent treatment plan; Dynamic Stillness and rhythmic balanced interchange
• Integration and completion.